"As I started writing this, folks were heading to the polls for the first time in a long, terrible year. Hyperbole somehow failed us when the White House was (is still being) destroyed. Plus, everyone's Social Security numbers were stolen, the world's biggest anti-vaxxer wants to ban Tylenol, and SNAP benefits were frozen for the first time. Yeah, it's been that kinda year. Pandora's box has been opened and all the maladies therein have been unleashed."
"Then again, the story of Pandora's box ends on a note of optimism (in most translations): The one thing that didn't escape the that box was hope. The very concept itself was found sloshing around in the same container that held all of the bad things that plague our species. Despite all of that, there's still hope. Indeed, it was a delight to wake up Wednesday morning to some good news for once."
"We in California hope Prop 50 can act as a stop-gap to the Trump-supported gerrymandering of Texas. In New York, an unabashed capitalist and accused sexual predator lost the mayoral election to an overt Democratic Socialist and Muslim. These are just two of the dozen-or-so elections that took place across the country, but the time and energy (and money) put into them rivals anything we saw last year."
The past year included political chaos, data breaches, public-health misinformation, and frozen social benefits alongside ongoing institutional breakdowns. Pandora's box metaphor frames a cascade of crises while preserving hope as the remaining force. Recent election results offered tangible reasons for optimism, including efforts like Prop 50 countering gerrymandering and New York's mayoral upset favoring a democratic socialist and Muslim candidate over an accused predator. Widespread civic energy and investment matched or exceeded the previous year's intensity. Persistent public hope and willingness to fight undercut authoritarian advances and reveal fractures among those who gained power through hate.
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